Emerald Cut Cocktail Ring with Pave Border

One big stone, framed properly. The centre is a large rectangle cut with stepped facets running parallel to its edges and the corners clipped off — the shape jewellers call an emerald cut, because it was developed for emeralds, which crack if you put a sharp point on them. Around it runs a close-set border of small clear stones, and the band is plain gold tone so nothing competes.

An emerald cut behaves differently from the brilliant cuts used in most costume jewellery. A brilliant is engineered to scatter light into white sparkle; an emerald cut has fewer, larger facets arranged in steps, so instead of sparkling it flashes in broad planes and shows the colour of the stone much more honestly. On a stone this size that is the right choice — you want to see the colour, not a glitter.

The small stones around the edge are doing a specific job. A large stone sitting alone on a plain band looks stranded; a border of tiny stones gives the eye a transition from metal to colour and makes the centre stone read as larger than it is. Every serious cocktail ring ever made uses this trick.

Materials

A word on what this style actually is. Kundan is the technique of setting a stone without claws: the stone is laid into a recess and then strips of pure, very soft gold are pressed in around it until the metal grips it. It is the oldest setting method in India, it predates the use of prongs by centuries, and it is why Mughal-period jewellery has that characteristic flat gold rim around every stone. What you are buying here is the look of that technique rendered in plated brass with glass and cubic zirconia, which is what the whole Indian imitation-jewellery trade is built on.

Shades and stock

Three colourways are stocked. Red is the best-stocked and the most classic against gold. Pink is the softest and the one in the main photograph. Purple is the most unusual and the one that reads as a semi-precious stone rather than a ruby substitute.

The piece is brass with a gold-tone plating. It is not gold and is not sold as gold — what it gives you is the warm colour and the weight of a much more expensive ring, in something you can wear to a wedding without thinking about it, and replace without regret if it is lost.

Fit

This ring is adjustable. The band is not a closed circle — it is a tapered strip coiled so the two ends overlap behind the finger, and you open or close it by a few millimetres with your fingers. In practice that covers most adult sizes, roughly a UK J to a UK S, which is why almost all Indian fashion rings are made this way: nobody has to know their ring size, and the same ring still fits when knuckles swell in summer.

A closer look

Adjust it off the finger, not on it, and move it gradually. Opening and closing the same band repeatedly is what eventually tires the metal, so set it once to your finger and leave it there.

How it wears

This is the most expensive ring in the range and it looks like it from across a room. It is a cocktail ring in the proper sense — one large stone, worn alone, on an evening when the hand is going to be seen. Wear it on the index or middle finger with no other rings on that hand.

Care

Rings take more punishment than any other piece of jewellery because hands do the work. The things that actually shorten a plated ring's life are water, soap, hand sanitiser, perfume and cooking oil, in roughly that order. The habit worth building is simple: the ring goes on last when you are dressing and comes off first when you are washing up, bathing, cooking or swimming.

Clean it with a dry soft cloth only. Never use a silver dip or a polish — a dip strips an oxidised finish completely and will take gold plating with it, and a polish wears plating thin at exactly the high points you want to keep bright. Store it dry and on its own, because rings scratch each other in a shared box.